Soul Food: Shuko Oda on her mother's Japanese cooking

The Japanese chef loves salty food and recalls her mother's onigiri rice balls
and miso soup

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Shuko Oda as a child (far left)

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By Shuko Oda

7:30AM BST 03 May 2014

When I was a child, I never ate anything sweet – I loved vinegary, salty things. My brother, three years older, was the opposite – he loved steaks and chocolate, yet he has always been skinny. Our father was a banker, and we moved every three years, shuttling between Japan, California and London (where I was born). My mother was never the type to spend a whole day cooking, but she could cook a great dinner very quickly.

I loved her miso soup (she made it using kombu seaweed) and onigiri rice balls. Onigiri means 'to hold’ – rice you can hold in your hand. They represent the warmth of your mother’s hand.The simplest are made with just salt, and I would eat them with umeboshi savoury plums. For my birthday my mother would order a jellied-fruit cake or sushi in the shape of a cake. My American friends thought it very strange. I just loved basic Japanese food – mainly, I suppose, because I was in a non-Japanese country. I looked forward to my mother’s lunch boxes. My favourites were when she put pickles in my rice, and when she added scrambled egg. Even though I’m now a chef, I still miss her bento boxes.